The dialogue highlighted effective multi-level governance as an important indicator of sustainable urbanisation. Many national governments – especially Ministries of Finance, which do not always understand their role in sustainable urbanisation – are often resistant to devolving power or fiscal responsibility to sub-national governments. This can happen for a range of reasons, including political divisions and lack of trust.
It is important to change the narrative around governance, ensuring that local governments are “at the table” in urban planning and overseas aid discussions. Given that national governments may lack a clear incentive to devolve powers to municipalities, delivering multi-level governance requires time and trust-building between different levels of government, as well as an emphasis on bipartisanship and shared responsibilities.
There should be investment in leadership and peer learning at a local level, ensuring that those in sub-national governments, including female leaders, have the support and capacity to advocate for locally-led urban planning.
A coalition on sustainable urbanisation could make the case for multi-level governance, following the example of how the Commonwealth has facilitated discussion on these issues. The Commonwealth Local Government Forum provides a platform for greater engagement between national and sub-national governments. In addition, the UK is one of 75 signatories of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for climate action at COP28 in 2023. A call was made for more countries to sign up to the initiative.